Romney: Obama running on “falsehood and dishonesty”

Ed MorrisseyPosted at 9:21 am on July 16, 2012

Mitt Romney took a swing at Barack Obama’s “hope and change” legacy today, starting off his week back on offense. Romney slammed Obama for “falsehood and dishonesty” in his campaign ads, telling Fox and Friends that this kind of nasty campaigning “may work in Chicago,” but it will fail everywhere else:

He also took aim at Obama’s transparency. Shrugging off calls from Republicans to release more of his tax returns, Romney instead demanded more transparency from the President on Operation Fast and Furious:

“A campaign based on falsehood and dishonesty does not have long legs,” Romney said on “Fox and Friends,” later adding: “The president only has one thing going, and that is constant attacks on me. They’re dishonest. They’re misdirected. And I think the American people recognize that kind of politics as something of the past. It may work in Chicago, but it’s not going to work across America.”

The presumptive Republican nominee also dismissed calls from some in the GOP to release more of his tax returns, arguing it would only give the Obama campaign “more things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to make a mountain out of, and to distort and to be dishonest about.”

Romney tried to flip the transparency card back at the president.

“If we want to talk about transparency, the real issue is, why has this president used his presidential power and executive privilege to keep the information about the Fast and Furious program from being explained to the American people?” the former Massachusetts governor said, referring to Obama’s assertion of executive privilege over documents related to the disastrous “gun-walking” operation.